Purple Cane Road by James Lee Burke

jeans to work, was thick-bodied and muscular, and looked boldly into the world’s face, her arms pumped, her waved, lacquered blond hair her only visible concession to femininity. As a rule, she had trouble with difficult people only once. She had shot and killed three perpetrators on the job.
    We stood in the parking lot of the bar the intruder had visited the night before he had wedged a screwdriver blade into the lock on Little Face’s cabin door. The sun was out, the air cool and rain-washed, the sky blue above the trees.
    “You think he’s the same guy who did Zipper Clum, huh?” Helen said.
    “That’s my read on it,” I said.
    “He tells the bartender he’s delivering dishware to a family named Grayson, who don’t exist, then casually mentions the Graysons live next to the Dautrieves, and that’s how he finds Little Face. We’re dealing with a shit-bag who has a brain?”
    She didn’t wait for me to answer her question. She looked back at the bar, tapping her palm on the top of the cruiser.
    “How do you figure this guy? He must have known his contract was on a woman, but then he walks out on the job,” she said.
    “She had the baby in the room with her. It sounds like he wasn’t up to it.”
    “All we need is another piece of shit from New Orleans floating up the bayou. What do you want to do now, boss man?”
    “Good question.”
    Just as we started to get in the cruiser, the bartender opened the screen door and leaned outside. He held up a brightly colored brochure of some kind in his hand.
    “Is this any hep to y’all?” he asked.
    “What you got there?” I said.
    “The man you was axing about? He left it on the counter. I saved it in case he come back,” the bartender said.
    Helen’s usual martial expression stretched into a big smile. “Sir, don’t handle that any more than you need to. There you go. Just let me get a Ziploc bag and you can slip it right inside…That’s it, plop it right in. Lovely day, isn’t it? Drop by the department for free doughnuts any time. Thank you very much,” she said.
     
    IT’S CALLED THE Automated Fingerprint Identification System, or AFIS. It’s a miracle of technology. A latent fingerprint can be faxed to a computer at a regional pod and within two hours be matched with a print that is already on file.
    If the fingerprint has a priority.
    Priorities are usually given to homicide cases or instances when people are in custody and there is a dramatic need to know who they are.
    The man who had prized open Little Face Dautrieve’s cabin door was de facto guilty of little more than breaking and entering. The possibility that he was the same man who killed Zipper Clum was based only on my speculation. Also, the Clum homicide was not in our j ur isdiction.
    No priority for the latent print we took off the dish-ware brochure the bartender had saved. Get a number and wait. The line in Louisiana is a long one.
    I called the office of Connie Deshotel, the attorney general, in Baton Rouge.
    “She’s out right now. Can she call you back?” the secretary said.
    “Sure,” I replied, and gave her my office number.
    I waited until quitting time. No call. The next day was Saturday.
    I tried again Monday morning.
    “She’s out,” the secretary said.
    “Did she get the message I left Friday?” I asked.
    “I think she did.”
    “When will she be back?”
    “Anytime now.”
    “Can you have her call me, please?”
    “She’s just been very busy, sir.”
    “So are we. We’re trying to catch a murderer.”
    Then I felt stupid and vituperative for taking out my anger on a secretary who was not to blame for the problem.
    Regardless, I received no return call. Tuesday morning I went into Helen’s office. Her desk was covered with paperwork.
    “You want to take a ride to Baton Rouge?” I asked.
     
    CONNIE DESHOTEL’S OFFICE was on the twenty-second floor of the state capitol building, high above the green parks of the downtown area and the wide sweep